"There," I gasp. "Right there."
"Yeah?" He does it again, harder this time, and a moan tears from me. "What do you need?"
"Harder. Faster. I need—" The words dissolve into a cry as he gives me exactly what I asked for, his hips snapping against mine with perfect force.
The pressure builds fast, coiling tight at the base of my spine. His mouth finds my neck, teeth scraping, and that combination of pleasure and bite pushes me over. I come with his name torn from my throat, clenching around him in rhythmic pulses that feel endless.
He follows moments later with a groan, his hips jerking as he spills inside me, his mouth pressed to my shoulder.
We stay tangled together afterward, hearts still racing. The room smells like sex and soap. Eventually he shifts to pull the blanket over us, tucking me against his side. He's softening inside me, the warm slide of our combined wetness between my thighs.
I press my face into his neck, breathing him in. This. Us. Real.
His fingers trace lazy patterns on my back as my breathing evens out. Sleep pulls at me, warm and heavy, and for the first time in two years, I let myself drift without the nightmares waiting.
When I wake, Micah's already dressed in his tactical pants and grey t-shirt. He sits on the edge of the bed, lacing his boots.
"Morning," he says, glancing over his shoulder. His mouth curves into something soft. "Coffee's ready."
I sit up, pulling the sheet with me. "You made coffee?"
"Had to do something while you were sleeping." He finishes with his boots and leans over, dropping a kiss on my forehead. "Ops center in twenty. Kane wants a status update on the Reeve intel."
Right. Back to work. Back to the mission.
But when he leaves, his duffel bag sits by the door. His jacket hangs on the hook next to mine.
Over the next several days, this becomes our rhythm. Operational briefings and intelligence analysis during the day, quiet moments in our quarters at night.
The protocols we implemented are holding. Committee communications traffic shows no awareness of our internal operations, no signs of the intelligence leaks that plagued us before we identified Reeve. Cross sends daily updates on his interrogation—he's talking, slowly, giving up information about Webb's network and operations. Each piece of intel she extracts gets cross-referenced against what we already know, building a clearer picture of Committee structure.
The team adjusts to me and Micah as a unit faster than I expected. Kane makes one joke about operational security, Dylan reminds everyone that more than half the team is paired up anyway, and that's it. We're integrated, part of Echo Ridge's operational fabric.
I'm in our quarters when the shift fully registers. Our quarters. Not mine. Ours.
Micah's things appeared gradually. A duffel bag the first morning. Tactical gear the next day. Now his weapons case sits beside mine in the closet, his clothes hang next to mine on the rack.
I'm reorganizing the dresser to make more room when he comes in from the operations center, still in his black tactical pants and grey t-shirt. There's tension in his shoulders that speaks to hours spent monitoring satellite feeds and encrypted communications.
"Hey." He crosses to me, dropping a kiss on my temple. "What are you doing?"
"Making space for your stuff." I gesture to the drawer I've cleared.
He looks at the empty drawer, then at me, and his expression softens. "You don't have to do that."
"I want to." I close the drawer and turn to face him. "This is our space now. I want it to feel like yours too."
He pulls me close, his arms wrapping around me. For a moment we just stand there, breathing together in the quiet of our quarters. It's real beneath my hands, something I can hold onto.
"I never thought I'd have this again," he says quietly against my hair. "A place that feels like home. Someone who feels like home."
I pull back enough to look up at him. "You have it now."
His hand comes up to cup my jaw, thumb brushing across my cheekbone. "Yeah. I do."
He kisses me, slow and deep, and I sink into the taste of him, the feel of his hands on my body, the solid warmth of him against me. His hands slide down my back, pulling me closer. Heat pools low in my belly when I feel him hardening against me—not the desperate rush from before but something deeper. Deliberate.
When he pulls back, hunger darkens his expression. He leads me to the bed, his hand firm on my wrist, then turns me to face him. His hands slide under my shirt, pulling it up and off, then unhook my bra. His gaze tracks over me with an intensity that steals my breath, and my nipples tighten under his attention.
